Media Blasters works some Go Nagai material and it’s incredibly hard to pass up with a subtitle of “One Tuff Mutha”.
What They Say
In the Asuka family, nothing is more important than family tradition. For their lovely young daughter Jun, it means she must get married on her 18th birthday. Although poor little virgin Jun is not above kickin’ butt, she just can’t stand the thought of marrying someone she doesn’t love. Her mother sends out a gang of bloodthirsty goons to drag her to the altar, but Jun would rather beat a hundred suitors into one big bloody mess than get married on her mother’s terms, and she’s about to prove it.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with an English language dub, both of which are encoded at 192kbps. The show features a basic stereo mix with dialogue being primarily center channel based while music and ambient effects utilize the stereo channels a bit. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout both tracks.
Video:
Originally released in 1992, the presentation of this OVA brings us the show in its original full frame aspect ratio. The encoding here suffers from some small problems. The primary one, especially during the first half of the show, is that the transfer looks overly bright, causing much of the character designs and backgrounds to look extremely soft and lacking in detail. Beyond that, there’s some light aliasing during some of the action sequences, but we noted no cross coloration during regular playback. The brightness problem seems to taper off as it gets deeper into the show, but there’s still a general feeling of softness.
Packaging:
The packaging presentation for this release with its front cover has an interesting image of the buffed up Jun in a skimpy one-piece while wielding a sword. The background has some monstrous looking creature cover in electricity coming at her. The back cover has the image of Jun again but this time as a long-haired blonde and ripping away her clothes. The covers in general really don’t do much to push the show or what it’s about, but that’s not exactly an easy thing to do with this show. The summary gives a brief idea of what to expect and also provides the basic production and technical credits.
Menu:
The menu is a nice simple static piece that’s the same as the front cover with no music playing or animations going along with it. With nothing else here beyond trailers, the menus are simple and easy to navigate with very fast access times.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Go Nagai’s works, I try to take them on a case by case basis, since they turn into love or hate things. Some work better than others and creatively, Go Nagai has a pretty good range overall. While I won’t say I hate Iron Virgin Jun, I really do have to wonder at the point of it all. But I love the fact that they didn’t do a series for it, as that would turn it into a hate job. The story of Iron Virgin Jun is an odd one, as we’re introduced to the beautiful young blonde woman in a pretty pink dress as her mother is showing her off to the top level of local society. The family is immensely rich, having invested in power plants and other such ventures early on and they’ve taken advantage of their financial situation by living in the highest mansion on the highest hilltop of the area, allowing them to overlook everything.
Jun’s mother is a towering woman, the kind you expect from 80’s wrestling, where she’s definitely looking more like a man than a woman. Her husband is a diminutive gray-haired man, but he’s got the heart and soul of the family in him, but dislikes what his wife is doing. Jun definitely doesn’t like it, as she doesn’t want to marry yet, especially since the candidates we see are all inbred morons of a colossal scale. So what’s a girl to do?
Yep, she runs away from home, causing her mother to send her goons off to catch her. She ends up with one of the house servants named Kurata going along with her, someone that she may just turn out to love more than she knows. While on the run, Jun realizes the error in her way and decides to follow Kurata’s lead to go back to the house and make amends and try to stand up for herself. Unfortunately, they end up going towards the city as opposed to the house, and the two find themselves really on the run now as Jun’s mother has sent the most unsavory of types to go and capture her.
In Summary:
Once on the run, the show goes into a mostly action routine with Jun dealing with the people sent to capture her as well as finally confronting her mother. There’s a deeper darker secret that runs behind things for awhile with this family that gives reason for it all, but it merely ties things up closer to the end as opposed to giving much motivation earlier on that would make any difference. Go Nagai fans may get more out of this, as it seems like there’s more to the story in the manga than the anime version, but casual viewers will find more to make fun of than anything else here.
Features
Japanese Language, English Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: C
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: C
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Media Blasters
Release Date: January 28th, 2003
MSRP: $17.95
Running Time: 45 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
